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China Travelogue by Bad Ass Bunny was included in our free DVD insert with our Shaolin Special 2012. We are releasing it in honor of our Shaolin Special 2013 which arrives on the newsstands today.
Shaolin Strongmen
Strongman contestants visit Shaolin Temple
Chinadaily.com.cn, July 8, 2013
Competitors in the 2013 China World Strongman Championship visited the Shaolin Temple in Zhengzhou, Henan province, on Sunday afternoon to study Chinese martial arts with monks.
Shaolin monks perform kung fu for visiting competitors in the 2013 China World Strongman Championship on Sunday.
The contestants said it was a good opportunity to learn about Chinese martial arts and culture.
China’s Shaolin Temple is the birthplace of kung fu and a central location of many martial arts films.
The monks from Shaolin Temple demonstrated their skills and then taught the contenders some movements.
One participant, Zydrunas Savickas from Lithuania, who is 1.91 meters tall and weighs 170 kg, said, “I first learned of the Shaolin Temple on television when I was 18 years old. This is the first time I have witnessed it. It is really very big.”
He added, “It is really interesting to get close to Chinese kung fu, which is more powerful than I saw on TV or in film.”
Rob Frampton, a 40-year-old contestant from England, told China Daily, “Both China and the UK have a very long history. I am very interested in Chinese culture.” He added it was a good opportunity to experience and understand Chinese culture and kung fu.
He already knew the Shaolin Temple was the birthplace of kung fu and had some knowledge of Buddhism.
He enjoyed the visit very much, saying it was relaxing and helped him recover faster and prepare for the next day’s matches.
The 2013 China World Strongman Championship began in Zhendong New District of Zhengzhou, the capital city of Henan province, on Friday.
Thirty-two contestants from 31 countries, including China, the United States, Russia, the United Kingdom, Germany, Finland, Lithuania, Ukraine and Morocco, will compete until Wednesday for the championship.
This contest is the largest such in terms of scale, and attracts the most contestants.
All contestants are winners of strongman contests in their home countries. They are also ranked in the top 100 World Hercules Union, including former champion Savickas.
One Chinese competitor, Zhang Jianjun from Hebei province, won China’s strongman contest in 2012. Another competitor Zhou Rong is from Zhengzhou, Henan province.
The contest will include lifting dumbbells with one hand, pulling aircraft and holding huge stone balls, with some Chinese traditional elements thrown in.
Strongman contestants learn Chinese martial arts at Shaolin Temple in Zhengzhou, Henan province, on Sunday afternoon.
A contestant in the 2013 China World Strongman Championship reads China Daily on Sunday.
Ever seen a strongman competition?
My Shaolin Journey
Just went and visited the Shaolin Temple a couple of days ago. Fantastic trip for me.
Shaolin Temple was pretty touristy (no surprise), but it was also very cool for me to be there. The price of admission includes a short gong fu show, which was fun, and for me walking the grounds there was a little bit like a pilgrimage. Saw so many things I’ve only seen pictures of or heard about before. But it got better.
I guess my visit to Shaolin was karmically aligned or something, because I had two fantastic surprises while I was there.
Walking through the temple, I eventually arrived at the abbot’s residence. There was some kind of a press conference going on and for a minute or two I was able to catch some glimpses of Shi Yongxin through the crowd. After a very short time, the Abbot and those people with press passes disappeared into his chambers and I moved on with my tour.
Maybe half an hour later, I heard a commotion and turned around to see the Abbot walking in my direction! He was giving some kind of a tour to the press and lead them right past me. When he saw me, he smiled, we did the whole prayer hands and ‘Amitoufo’ thing, and he asked where I was from. Love him or hate him, this was still super cool for me. 
That in itself would have been enough to make my visit to Shaolin, but I had another surprise in store. When I stopped by a stand selling the stuff they sell there to ask directions to Damo’s cave (got confused because it’s labeled as ‘Dharma Cave’), two of the monks operating the stand said (in Chinese of course), “Hey, you’re the guy from Kunming who trained at Guandu Shaolin Temple and wrote the article on Shi Yanbei!” I did a major double-take and lo and behold, these two guys I just happened to ask directions from were monks who had been stationed at the Guandu Shaolin Temple while I was there. Totally amazing.
I know a lot of people who go to visit the Shaolin Temple end up feeling let down, but I was not. I’m even considering paying the (relatively) high cost to train there, just so I can hang out on the grounds for a few days. I don’t know if I’ll do it though–I got spoiled in Kunming training with Shaolin monks for free (well, for work exchange). I’ll certainly go back to visit one more time though before I leave Dengfeng.
[QUOTE=GeneChing;1240613]Nice! Good place to plug the article. ;)[/QUOTE]
Thanks for that, Gene. 
Vidyut Jammwal
For more on Vidyut, see C, C2 & BR.
Vidyut Jammwal visits Shaolin temple in China
PTI : Mumbai, Wed Aug 21 2013, 10:07 hrs
Vidyut Jammwal has trained in Kalaripayattu in Kerala since the age of three.
Commando actor Vidyut Jammwal, a martial arts enthusiast, visited the Shaolin Temple, on Mount Song, in China recently and spent a few days there.
Vidyut, who has trained in Kalaripayattu in Kerala since the age of three, visited the temple to commemorate and salute Bodhidharma, the great master of Kalaripayattu, who is believed to have taken the art from India to China.
The actor also managed to spend a week training as part of a very closed door martial arts camp at the temple which is meant only for martial arts experts and not novices.
The camp covers aspects of attack, combat, self defense and even protection and healing spanning various martial art forms.
A journey in the making
Charlie Hunnam’s ‘Fifty Shades’ workout may include martial arts
‘Pacific Rim’ actor is already in phenomenal shape to tackle the coveted role of Christian Grey in the upcoming erotic drama.
Tue, Sep 03 2013 at 12:03 PM
Creative Commons
Charlie Hunnam, the British actor who rose to fame as Jax Teller on the hit FX series “Sons of Anarchy,” has just landed one of the most coveted roles in Hollywood. As announced by “Fifty Shades of Grey” author E.L. James this morning, the 33-year-old actor will appear in the upcoming film version of the hit novel as the billionaire industralist Christian Grey. “21 Jump Street” actress Dakota Johnson will play the role of Anastasia Steele.
For those familiar with Hunnam’s work on “Sons of Anarchy,” it’s easy to see why producers selected him for the role of Grey. Unlike other actors that transform their bodies for specific roles, Hunnam consistently hits the gym - telling Men’s Fitness that for him, staying in shape has benefits way beyond the physical.
“The benefit of working out is 90 percent mental and 10 percent physical,” he says. “I feel better — like that I have more energy. But the mental side is an extraordinary benefit. I’m happier, more confident, and more positive when I work out. And I feel like I’m a better actor because of the clarity it gives me.”
While it’s unclear whether he’ll be assigned a personal trainer for “Fifty Shades,” it’s evident Hunnam doesn’t really need one. Pull-ups, dips, swimming, bodyweight moves, and other intense routines are all squeezed daily into what can sometimes be 15-hour workdays.
“Being an actor is fantastic because you get to live your dreams and all of that, but I always think it’s slightly irritating when you hear from the outside world and people are like, ‘Yeah, well if I was an actor and all I had to do was look good, I could be that ripped too.’ Well I’ve got news for you, man! I work 15 hours a day and still go to the gym,” he tells GQ. “Most people work eight hours a day and say ‘I haven’t got time to work out.’ Bulls***! If you want to be super-fit and look ripped then you find the time no matter what.”
More recently, Hunnam started including Bartendaz workouts into his routine; which mixes up acrobatic moves with martial arts and other physical movements. Up until his casting in the recent scifi film “Pacific Rim,” the actor also had plans to travel to China to study Wing Chun kung fu in the famed Shaolin Temple.
“I still actually intend to do that, although I’m not sure if I’m going to go to China; I might actually go to Thailand and do a month-long intensive Muay Thai academy,” he says.
Check out Hunnam performing some of his workouts for Men’s Fitness below. "Fifty Shades of Grey’ will be released by Focus Features on August 1, 2014.
Traveling to Shaolin to study Wing Chun, eh? Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight. :rolleyes:
[QUOTE=GeneChing;1247322]Traveling to Shaolin to study Wing Chun, eh? [/QUOTE]
He must have seen the Kung Fu Magazine.com Front Page Video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2s-dcrS-4xE&list=PL4E2B154D13318924
[QUOTE=GeneChing;1247322]Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight. :rolleyes:[/QUOTE]
Come on isn’t it KFM promoting “Shaolin Wing Chun” Videos? 
That’s Shaolin Black Flag - a whole other can of worms
But hey, if Charlie’s watching - call me. I’ll put ya on the cover! 
i would wager a guess the wing chun comes off of robert downing jr’s coat tails.
someone should just show that acter the wing chun forum here, he’ll do the right thing.
Oh definitely it’s the Downey effect
What with all the Ip Man flicks too, you’d think Wing Chun would be trending even more. It’s really a shame that the Wing Chun clans aren’t really seizing the opportunity. They had a chance in the wake of Bruce Lee. Now, they have another chance.
Actually, you could find Wing Chun at Shaolin Temple, at least, the Siping one. See Shaolin Training in China: From Expectation to Reality by Clemente Liberto. There might even be some at Songshan. It’s just funny to hear Hunnam make that statement so. We here all know why.
[QUOTE=GeneChing;1247361]There might even be some at Songshan.[/QUOTE]
Sometimes, but not by the monks.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cnTd7Xr79bQ
If you compare the activity on the Shaolin and Wing Chun forums here, you’ll find most discussion on the Shaolin forum, when it happens, is about history and playing forms (or philosophy, politics, recent events, etc. anything but fighting), whereas on the Wing Chun forum it’s all about fighting methods and training to fight.
The same is true elsewhere online. Everyday on Facebook I see snazzy poses and forms from one group, and clips of at least partner drills and fight training from the other. You can guess which is which.
This Hunnam guy sounds interested in fighting, having also mentioned going to Thailand for a month-long intensive Muay Thai training. He’d be much better off doing that or going to Hong Kong for some Wing Chun. There’s only one way to find good traditional fight training in Shaolin, and it’s not going to the monastery as a celebrity looking for Wing Chun.
Seriously?
[QUOTE=LFJ;1247414]This Hunnam guy sounds interested in fighting, [/QUOTE] He’s an actor. He’s not that interested in fighting. You think he wants to risk his moneymaker face doing Muay Thai? It’s just stuff for the press. That was my point with the initial post. If he was really interested in this stuff, he wouldn’t have made such a poser gaffe.
Nevertheless, I hope he does go to Shaolin. Regardless of the Wing Chun, it would be a great press op for both him and Shaolin, especially if he does it while promoting 50 Shades.
I honestly have no idea who the guy is, but if he says he wants to go do a month of Muay Thai in Thailand I take it that’s what he wants to do. Plenty of actors are serious martial artists.
Maling Shaolin Kungfu Academy in Jiangsu
Published: Wednesday September 11, 2013 MYT 9:22:00 AM
Updated: Wednesday September 11, 2013 MYT 10:06:08 AM
Shaolin sojourn
By DAVINA GOH
The writer outside the gates of the shaolin academy
BY the time anyone reads this, I would have spent a month and a week at the Maling Shaolin Kungfu Academy in Jiangsu Province, China.
I took an overnight train to get here, propped upright on the hardest chair imaginable for twelve hours straight and receiving looks of fascination from the five other people at my booth. The school is situated about a half-hour bus ride away from the nearest city centre of Xinyi. The setting is rustic; training takes place five days a week in a reasonably-sized backyard, or on top of a small, breezy hill nearby.
Since I have been here, the weather has drastically changed from 40-degree heat and unbearable humidity to dry, chilly air. I will be here until winter, when I will be living in minus 10-degree weather – and snow! - for the very first time.
Before this, I had an amazing boss who understood and supported my burgeoning acting career. But working in her event management company for nine years had me yearning for change. I didn’t know what that change was going to be, but I knew it had to be big.
The thought of signing up for kungfu school had been swimming around my head for about three years. A good friend proposed it as an interesting alternative to a post-grad education after I failed to raise enough funds for a Masters degree in Theatre.
I had a dream to pursue martial arts as a teenager, but my father at the time didn’t encourage it. I’ve finally figured that at 30 years, I’m as old as I’ll ever be, but I’m also as young as I’ll ever get. And something as physically insane as Shaolin kungfu isn’t exactly an idea that should be sat on for too long.
Right now, I am nursing a sprained toe, a weak knee, a pulled hamstring, sore hip flexors and more bruises than I can count. I punch trees and beat myself with bamboo sticks. I do wheelbarrows on pavement so hot that it makes my palms blister. I am pushed to my limits and I hide the agony until it escapes my lips in a guttural roar. If my mother were to witness what I am actually putting myself though, she would demand for me to take the first flight home.
But this is a golden moment for me, while my body is still able, to experience what regular people in a conventional urban environment would never think of putting themselves through.
My repressed tomboy adolescence is out in full swing. In kungfu school, there are no such thing as boys or girls– just a bunch of people eager for self-punishment.
My classmates are from the world over, mainly Europe. They work hard and play hard, and together we create a home away from home. Their company forms one of the most extraordinary parts of this choice of education. Some students stay for a month, others a year. The number of students is small enough for us to feel a huge difference in group dynamics whenever someone comes in or leaves.
Each of us made a decision to dedicate a speck of our lifetime to abandoning our comfort zone and escape to a random corner of the world to try something new. The chances of a kungfu school being our meeting place, only to have us eventually leave and probably never see each other again (together at least), must be truly minimal. It makes every one of these relationships unique and precious.
After my job resignation, I received two very distinct responses to my intentions of going to China. One was the gobsmacked disbelief, quickly followed by “Why?!” The other was the knowing smile and something along the lines of “That is so ‘you’!” I acknowledge either reaction, grateful to have managed to establish myself as someone who does not hold back – the ‘random’ sort of person whom you get warned about making friends with.
Adrenaline kicks aside, the daunting process of learning new things is also a process of humility… Of constantly breaking down and reconstructing one’s reality to make way for new knowledge and ways of being. I can give a dozen reasons as to why I have taken up Shaolin kungfu, and boy, have I given my dozen.
But my main motivation is honoring the fact that at any age, we are all beginners at life. If you think about it, it is how much we embrace this advantage that defines how we will be remembered.
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Davina is a Malaysian performer in theatre, musicals, film, TV, voiceovers and spoken word. She embraces human connections and simple pleasures. She asks: What are you grateful for today? Follow her at @duuuhvina.
All aspiring actresses should train in Kung Fu.
[QUOTE=GeneChing;1247492]He’s an actor. He’s not that interested in fighting. You think he wants to risk his moneymaker face doing Muay Thai? [/QUOTE]
Mickey Rourke’s amateur boxing record was 27 wins and 3 losses.
Good point, wenshu. Very good point.
Might I even say it was ‘earnest’?
To be honest, I don’t really know Hunnam’s work in Anarchy. He was in Pacific Rim, but I didn’t really make note of his performance there. It was obscured by giant monsters and robots. I suppose I’m pretty jaded after charting our Celebrities studying martial arts? thread for so long. So many actors will mention their martial arts practice like dropping a famous director’s name, mostly to generate buzz on how hard they are working on the film. While it’s great that they are endorsing martial arts (nothing beats a celebrity endorsement) they are essentially getting paid to practice and usually only maintain it for a few months during pre-production. That leaves me pretty skeptical. I should give Hunnam the benefit of the doubt, I suppose. However, if I just landed the lead role in 50 Shades, my thoughts would be towards a totally different kind of discipline.
Amazon MOther’s Day Commercial (I would have posted the official SNL site vid, but it seems to be offline at the moment).
I’ll add the next article that mentions Hunnam’s martial inclinations on that celeb thread, and eagerly await to hear about his burgeoning amateur fight record.
“I love hitmen. No matter what you do to them, you don’t feel bad.”
Marv
[QUOTE=GeneChing;1245283]For more on Vidyut, see C, C2 & BR.[/QUOTE]
Ah yes, I like going commando, I feel superlative.
Wasn’t Hunnam a star on Queer as Folk before he was famous?
I think he’s confused…
2012 New York State high school principal of the year in China
Luv the name “Shaolin Wushu Vocational Institute” This is wrong however: “And the Shaolin Wushu trained Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan and Jet Li.”
Dispatches from China: At a Kung Fu school, the greatest show on Earth
Jamesville-DeWitt Principal Paul Gasparini poses in Beijing’s Forbidden City. He is nearing the end of his weeklong journey in China. (Submitted photo)
Paul Riede | priede@syracuse.com By Paul Riede | priede@syracuse.com
on November 14, 2013 at 9:02 AM, updated November 14, 2013 at 9:04 AM
Paul Gasparini, principal of Jamesville-DeWitt High School and 2012 New York State high school principal of the year, is in China with other American educators. He has been sending dispatches back to The Post-Standard throughout his week-long trip.
By Paul Gasparini
Outside of Zhengzhou, in the mountain town of Dengfeng, sit the sprawling campuses of the Shaolin Wushu Vocational Institute. “Vocational institute” connotes a school for career training, and indeed this school does train its students. The training is not in auto technology or the culinary arts, however. It is in the martial art of Kung Fu.
Devotees of Kung Fu will recognize the name Shaolin. The Shaolin Temple is the spiritual home of Zen Buddhism. Think of it as the Buddhist Vatican. Kung Fu is the martial art that reflects the intellectual and physical discipline that Buddhism promotes. Shaolin Temple is also the name of a series of well-known Kung Fu movies. And the Shaolin Wushu trained Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan and Jet Li.
The Shaolin Wushu Vocational Institute is the single largest Kung Fu campus in the world. Boys and girls from ages 6 to university age stay in dormitories on campus and study academic subjects. But the focus of their education is the art of Kung Fu and all of their other subjects are subordinate to it.
When our tour bus pulled through the campus gates we saw hundreds of students in the training yards working through their drills. All of the students wore red warm-up jackets with Shaolin Institute written on the back and black sweat pants. Close to 300 students in a dozen or more groups were practicing different moves. All of them could do scissor flips! Imagine being at a school of more than 5,000 students in which doing a scissor flip was so routine it was unremarkable. For our group, that was the most remarkable thing about the school.
Down the road from the Wushu, which is the largest campus in the world, is the oldest Kung Fu campus in the world. That’s the Shaolin Monastery Traditional Arts School. It has not been updated over time. The buildings are old and look like the tenements in a Jacob Riis photograph.
We walked through doorways that led to courtyards which were similar to the hutongs, or old and rundown alleys, that are off the side streets in Beijing. Our group was hustled into a performance hall that seemed makeshift. Our hosts announced that we would have a student demonstration. I can say with complete honesty that the demonstration was the most impressive show I have ever seen.
I have seen great opera, Broadway shows, and exciting concerts. This show was better, much better, than any of these shows, and it is no contest.
It was hard to get back to regular school mode after that astonishing day in the Shonsang Mountains outside of Zhengzhou. However, we did, and my final post will discuss that experience.